Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller Agrees To Testify Before House Judiciary & Intelligence Committees

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify before the House Intelligence and House Judiciary Committees on July 17, according to statements by both panels on Thursday.

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-New York) and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff (D-California) served Mueller with a subpoena on Tuesday after the panels were unable to come to an agreement with the prosecutor over terms of voluntary testimony. The Democrats have been pursuing Mueller ever since his public statement last month where he refused to exonerate the president, hoping to use the former special counsel as a witness in their investigations into Donald Trump.

The Democrats hope that Mueller’s testimony will provide them with additional ammunition in their fight against the president, maybe even enough new information to sway public opinion towards beginning impeachment proceedings. So far only a third of the country supports an attempt to remove Trump from the Oval Office.

“Americans have demanded to hear directly from the special counsel so they can understand what he and his team examined, uncovered, and determined about Russia’s attack on our democracy, the Trump campaign’s acceptance and use of that help, and President Trump and his associates’ obstruction of the investigation into that attack,” Nadler and Schiff said in a joint statement.

According to the committee heads, Mueller was “very reluctant to come in” for the public hearings, but has promised to abide by the subpoena. Nadler stated that the prosecutor was previously only willing to answer questions before closed doors.

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It remains to be seen whether Mueller’s testimony will provide any new information on Trump. During his public statement last month, the investigator remarked that if he was called to testify before the House, he would not be providing any new information about his investigation and that the report he had sent to the Justice Department was all the testimony that was needed.

Article by Daniel Knopf